A PATIENT displaying Ebola symptoms is currently undergoing tests for the disease at Great Western Hospital in Swindon, where special measures are in place.

South West Ambulance Service’s hazardous area response team (HART) transported the as yet unidentified person from South Gloucestershire to the hospital.

A spokeswoman for the ambulance service said: "We can confirm the hazardous area reponse team has transported a patient into Great Western Hospital.

"That patient has recently returned from West Africa and has made complaints of feeling unwell.

"HART is carrying out all standard procedures to make the patient safe whilst they are transported."

A senior spokesman for Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said the hospital was in contact with the ambulance service and Public Health England on measures which should be in place for treatment.

It is understood that the patient in question had recently flown into the UK from South Africa, having previously spent time in Sierra Leone.

The patient would be the second to be diagnosed with the deadly virus in Britain.

Pauline Cafferkey, a Scottish public health nurse who had been volunteering in the stricken Sierra Leone, has today been described as in a critical condition, after being diagnosed on Sunday.

She is currently being treated in a quarantine tent at the Royal Free Hospital where she has agreed to be treated with an experimental drug which has no proof of working.

More to follow.